Magic Soup

More Magic Soup by Mike Taylor
Magic Soup by Mike Taylor

Magic Soup is a beautiful tale of five animal friends experiencing magic and is full of laughter, curiosity and fun.

The lovable characters will have children aged five to twelve years turning page after page.

Suitable as a bedtime story for younger readers through to early independent readers.

Each chapter is the perfect size for one night.

Audio Books:

Let’s meet the characters!

Periwinkle the Penguin

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Periwinkle the Penguin is a baby Emperor Penguin chick.
She has an infectious zest for life, and poking her beak into things without checking it is safe.
There is never a dull moment when she is about!

Eáster the blue rabbit

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Timid but fun loving, slightly cheeky, a bit of a doubter, but always wants to be part of what’s happening.

Piggy Bear

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Piggy Bear is soft, kind and generous, intelligent and a very good friend.

Marci the Mouse

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Small, white, cute and very sensible.
Slightly timid, but very curious.
If she says something it’s best to listen!

Hawthorn the Bear

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Hawthorn the Bear has a heart of gold and would never let anything happen to his friends. He’s the bear that will keep you safe. Everyone needs a Hawthorn the Bear.

The Story

As breakfast is being eaten by the five animals who live in Daisy Cottage, there is a knock on the door. Magic begins almost immediately as the visitor is a passing wizard on his way to a conference. The two bears, a rabbit, a mouse and a plucky penguin all experience the magical abilities that are the dreams of children, including flying around the room, walking through walls, listening to the minds of others  and even food that tastes of the eater’s favourite. They also make mistakes, and with magic that often has hilarious consequences. As an otherwise flightless bird, once Periwinkle the Penguin has experienced flying as a result of eating Magic Soup, she spends the rest of the book trying to do it again. The book finishes with thank you gifts left by the Wizard, one of which is a wooden box with gold trim and a golden latch that contains the most important thing in life. But what is that? Marci the Mouse must decide.

Magic Soup is deliberately priced to be affordable.

  • The cost per copy is $30NZ, which includes delivery to anywhere in New Zealand.
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The origin of Magic Soup

I originally wrote this story for my own children using their soft toys as the characters, but with editorial help and a review group of children aged 5 to 12 and their parents, we have brought it to life for all families. The original book was called Guy House and the Wizard

Meet the original cast, from the left: Piggy Bear, Cutie, Easter, Hawthorn, Baby Beary and Tiggy.

The original cast had three soft toys from our daughter (on the left) and three from our son (on the right). The concept started with little puppet shows at bed time. Slowly, each of the characters developed personalities, and stories were spawned.

Meet Periwinkle!

With the help of my editor: India Lopez of Coles and Lopez in Wellington, we changed Baby Beary to Periwinkle the Penguin, removed Cutie and changed Tiggy to Marci the Mouse.

The amazing cover artist is Wee Yee Chong, @artofsilverfox